ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how discursive psychologists have taken up Edwards' challenge to apply Sacks' foundational work in conversation analysis(CA) to topics of traditional psychological enquiry. Methodologically discursive psychology(DP) has been profoundly influenced by conversation analysis. Sacks' use of naturally occurring data has become a characteristic for both conversation analysis and discursive psychology. DP's early work on cognitivism phenomena have been profitably developed and enhanced through insights from conversation analysis. DP's approach to constructionism emerged through its engagement with the sociology of scientific knowledge and within the broader discourse analytic tradition within social psychology. The foregrounding of construction as an issue is one of the ways in which DP can be distinguished from CA as a separate intellectual endeavour. Finally the chapter considers what challenges discursive psychologists face when using conversation analysis for their research and how the two fields might engage with and inform each other moving forwards.
